Chapter 429 - 429 - Everyone knows the mage is a late-game class!

With a long, earsplitting howl, the Heavenly Maiden spread both claws and swung left and right, launching a frenzied assault on the monster horde at a speed that left people gaping.

Countless fireballs the size of tennis balls poured down like a rainstorm, tracing dense red arcs through the air in a rolling string of blasts. It was enough to make even Leon stare.

"Holy shit, Prince of Tennis!"

And the next second, something even more unexpected happened.

"Hey! Margaret, what are you doing?"

"Get back here!"

Before anyone could grab her, Margaret had already closed the distance to the monsters in a single bound, the Flame Sword extending from the wand in her hand sweeping down through the air with a searing hiss.

The huge Blue Crab was split in two from top to bottom, the cut surface charred black, giving off a smell like something cooked through.

Margaret did not even glance at the result. She danced through the enemy ranks like a fire spirit, the Flame Sword in her hand carving out one blazing arc after another.

The sword of flame howled as it swung, an eerie moaning sound.

The blade was certainly gorgeous, but the terrifying power with which it cut through monsters like a hot knife through butter made people hesitate to get near it.

Persephone pushed up her glasses without thinking.

"Am I seeing this right?"

"Margaret... when did she switch from Mage to magic swordsman?"

Leon pinched his chin, looking at the Heavenly Maiden still laying down insane covering fire with its Prince of Tennis tactics, then at Margaret already dancing in the middle of the enemy horde, and muttered in confusion:

"Margaret, did she just move from backline to midfield?"

"When did that happen? How come I didn't know?"

Jeanne looked at his blank-faced expression and said, irritated:

"All right, stop spacing out! Instead of standing here guessing, hurry up and join the fight."

"Even if Irisviel and Margaret can hold down the monsters of the Water City for a short while, that burst state won't last long. Once the two of them run out of Mind..."

"They're up against Lv.3 monsters, and their bodies are still at Lv.1 durability..."

Leon glanced at the panel information leaping across his vision.

Killed Lv.3 monster, Excelia +0.1

Killed Lv.3 monster, Excelia +0.1

...

Killed Lv.4 monster, Excelia +1

...

Watching the Excelia bar climb steadily higher, he thought that even though the Excelia from low-level monsters had been cut to a tenth, sheer volume made up for it.

Especially since mixed in among them were the occasional Lv.4 sneaky little bastards lying in wait. If Kureha had not cleared those threats out ahead of time, there was no way they would have felt safe letting Margaret and Laurier charge straight into the horde to dance.

"OK, my Magic is nearly back to full anyway..."

Leon tightened his grip on the Twisted Staff, looking at the assorted monsters still pouring out of the channels and the caverns, a flicker of eager interest passing through his eyes.

"Tsk tsk, this is all Excelia!"

"Looks like it's time to go big!"

Before the words had finished leaving his mouth, the ground under Leon's feet cracked and several blocks of ice surged up, shaped rapidly by his Magic into ice clones.

One after another, the ice clones finished forming and scattered in every direction.

At the same time, Leon's main body planted his staff in the ground, lowered his stance and closed his eyes, focusing entirely on controlling every clone.

"Frost Armor!" (x5)

He opened by putting Frost Armor on each ice clone. That way, even if a lapse in concentration led to a mistake, the clones would not collapse from a single hit. It raised his margin for error considerably.

The ice clones landed in scattered positions around the cavern, faintly forming a five-pointed star formation.

The next moment, Leon's main body snapped his eyes open and barked out:

"Frost Nova!" (x5)

With the five points as centers, five ring-shaped frost shockwaves erupted at once with a low hum.

Every monster within range was frozen in place by the "five rings," whether they were Raider Fish leaping out of the waterways and still hanging in midair, or the Blue Crab legion charging the defensive line with a thunderous roar.

"Tsk, five ice rings blooming at once... turns out I do have a tiny bit of artistic talent."

The corner of Leon's mouth curled up, and one of the ice clones raised both hands high.

"Blizzard!"

Domain, deployed!

The wind howled as one ice clone spun a huge ice-blue magic circle beneath its feet, sustaining a Blizzard whose range kept widening.

The other four ice clones each lifted an index finger, and small magic circles formed, frost swirling as sharp ice spikes condensed at their fingertips.

"Ice Lance!"

"Ice Lance!"

"Ice Lance Ice Lance Ice Lance Ice Lance Ice Lance Ice Lance Ice Lance Ice Lance!"

The monsters at the front of the charge never understood what hit them before they were riddled through.

In the white sheet of snow, howling wind and ice crystals wove together.

Countless Ice Lances from the four ice clones formed a crossfire net that was pure despair, cutting down the charging monsters in swathes like a scythe through wheat. Even the ones lucky enough to slip past the first mowing struggled to move under the slowing effect of the Blizzard, and the second "scythe" came for them right after.

After some initial clumsiness, Leon quickly found his rhythm.

He was an overpowered Mage at Lv.4 whose real stats rivaled a Lv.5, with Instant Cast built into his mechanics, a mana pool a hundred times normal, and a passive that leeched mana back into him. The moment he entered the fight, the entire battlefield flipped a hundred and eighty degrees.

Before, they had barely been holding the line, and the formation had kept contracting inward under the monsters' charge. Laurier and Kureha, the two swordsmen fighting at close quarters, had taken wounds of varying severity.

But with the Blizzard domain deployed and the dense crossfire net of Ice Lances grinding them down, the monster tide's advance came to a stop. More than that, many gaps were punched clean through it, and the tide-like horde was beaten into a jagged, sawtoothed shape by Leon's outpouring firepower.

"Hah!"

With a single stroke, Laurier cut down a Blue Crab that had been about to ambush her from the side. She felt the cold snowflakes on her cheek and held out her palm.

"It's snowing again..."

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